Selective cocaine-related difficulties in emotional intelligence: relationship to stress and impulse control.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) comprises the ability to perceive, use, understand, and regulate emotions and may potentially contribute to variability in risk-related factors such as stress perception and impulse control in cocaine dependent individuals. The main objective of the current study is to better define EI in cocaine dependent individuals compared with healthy controls, using the Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT). Secondary analysis investigates the association between EI, IQ factors, perceived stress, and impulse control in both populations.

Sex differences in neural responses to stress and alcohol context cues.

Stress and alcohol context cues are each associated with alcohol-related behaviors, yet neural responses underlying these processes remain unclear. This study investigated the neural correlates of stress and alcohol context cue experiences and examined sex differences in these responses. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, brain responses were examined while 43 right-handed, socially drinking, healthy individuals (23 females) engaged in brief guided imagery of personalized stress, alcohol-cue, and neutral-relaxing scenarios.

Association of frontal and posterior cortical gray matter volume with time to alcohol relapse: a prospective study.

Objective: Alcoholism is associated with gray matter volume deficits in frontal and other brain regions. Whether persistent brain volume deficits in abstinence are predictive of subsequent time to alcohol relapse has not been established. The authors measured gray matter volumes in healthy volunteers and in a sample of treatment-engaged, alcohol-dependent patients after 1 month of abstinence and assessed whether smaller frontal gray matter volume was predictive of subsequent alcohol relapse outcomes.

Behavioral arousal in response to stress and drug cue in alcohol and cocaine addicted individuals versus healthy controls.

Unlabelled: Negative emotional arousal in response to stress and drug cues is known to play a role in the development and continuation of substance use disorders. However, studies have not examined behavioral indicators of such arousal.

Objective: The current study examined behavioral and bodily arousal in response to stress and drug cue in individuals with alcohol dependence and cocaine dependence as compared to healthy controls using a new scale.

Self-reports of interoceptive responses during stress and drug cue-related experiences in cocaine- and alcohol-dependent individuals.

Cocaine dependence is associated with neuroadaptations in stress and reward pathways that could alter stress and drug-related experiences and associated interoceptive sensations and result in enhanced craving states. Subjective interoceptive emotional and physiological responses experienced in stressful and drug cue situations were examined in abstinent cocaine-dependent individuals. Fifty-six treatment engaged cocaine-dependent patients with comorbid alcohol abuse or dependence were interviewed to identify personal stressful, drug cue, and neutral situations using a scene construction questionnaire (SCQ) that includes an emotional and physiological response checklist.

Interactive effects of cumulative stress and impulsivity on alcohol consumption.

Background: Alcohol addiction may reflect adaptations to stress, reward, and regulatory brain systems. While extensive research has identified both stress and impulsivity as independent risk factors for drinking, few studies have assessed the interactive relationship between stress and impulsivity in terms of hazardous drinking within a community sample of regular drinkers.

Methods: One hundred and thirty regular drinkers (56M/74F) from the local community were assessed for hazardous and harmful patterns of alcohol consumption using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT).

Mindfulness training and stress reactivity in substance abuse: results from a randomized, controlled stage I pilot study.

Stress is important in substance use disorders (SUDs). Mindfulness training (MT) has shown promise for stress-related maladies. No studies have compared MT to empirically validated treatments for SUDs.

Sex-specific dissociations in autonomic and HPA responses to stress and cues in alcohol-dependent patients with cocaine abuse.

Aims: Chronic alcohol and drug dependence leads to neuroadaptations in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) and sympathetic adrenal medullary (SAM) stress systems, which impact response sensitivity to stress and alcohol cue and facilitates risk of relapse. To date, gender variations in these systems have not been fully assessed in abstinent alcohol-dependent individuals who also met criteria for cocaine abuse.

Methods: Forty-two (21 M/21 F) early abstinent treatment-seeking substance-abusing (SA) men and women and 42 (21 M/21 F) healthy control (HC) volunteers were exposed to three 5-min guided imagery conditions (stress, alcohol/drug cue, neutral relaxing), presented randomly, one per day across three consecutive days.

Altered impulse control in alcohol dependence: neural measures of stop signal performance.

Background: Altered impulse control has been implicated in the shaping of habitual alcohol use and eventual alcohol dependence. We sought to identify the neural correlates of altered impulse control in 24 abstinent patients with alcohol dependence (PAD), as compared to 24 demographics matched healthy control subjects (HC). In particular, we examined the processes of risk taking and cognitive control as the neural endophenotypes of alcohol dependence.

Enhanced negative emotion and alcohol craving, and altered physiological responses following stress and cue exposure in alcohol dependent individuals.

Chronic alcohol abuse is associated with changes in stress and reward pathways that could alter vulnerability to emotional stress and alcohol craving. This study examines whether chronic alcohol abuse is associated with altered stress and alcohol craving responses. Treatment-engaged, 28-day abstinent alcohol-dependent individuals (ADs; 6F/22M), and social drinkers (SDs; 10F/18M) were exposed to a brief guided imagery of a personalized stressful, alcohol-related and neutral-relaxing situation, one imagery condition per session, presented in random order across 3 days.

Gender differences in response to emotional stress: an assessment across subjective, behavioral, and physiological domains and relations to alcohol craving.

Background: Women and men are at risk for different types of stress-related disorders, with women at greater risk for depression and anxiety and men at greater risk for alcohol-use disorders. The present study examines gender differences in emotional and alcohol craving responses to stress that may relate to this gender divergence in disorders.

Method: Healthy adult social drinkers (27 men, 27 women) were exposed to individually developed and calibrated stressful, alcohol-related, and neutral-relaxing imagery, 1 imagery per session, on separate days and in random order.

Greater activation of the "default" brain regions predicts stop signal errors.

Previous studies have provided evidence for a role of the medial cortical brain regions in error processing and post-error behavioral adjustment. However, little is known about the neural processes that precede errors. Here in an fMRI study we employ a stop signal task to elicit errors approximately half of the time despite constant behavioral adjustment of the observers (n=40).

Stress-induced and alcohol cue-induced craving in recently abstinent alcohol-dependent individuals.

Background: Research has shown that exposure to stress/negative affect and to alcohol cues can each increase alcohol craving and relapse susceptibility in alcohol-dependent individuals. However, whether the emotional and physiological states associated with stress-induced and alcohol cue-induced craving are comparable has not been well studied. Therefore, this study examined the craving, emotional, and physiological responses to stress and to alcohol cues in treatment-engaged, 4-week abstinent, alcohol-dependent individuals using analogous stress and alcohol cue imagery methods.